Eric Swalwell: “I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, Russia attacked our democracy this past…”

“I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, Russia attacked our democracy this past election. I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question and for all of us to get to the business of forming an independent commission to find out how we were attacked, who was responsible, whether any U.S. persons were involved, and, most importantly, promise the American people we will do everything we can to make sure we never find ourselves in a mess like this again. Congressman Cummings and I introduced H.R. 356, the Protecting Our Democracy Act, because we always believed that the only way to have a comprehensive understanding of what happened and who was responsible and to make recommendations was through an independent commission. However, it also now is an insurance policy against compromised investigations that we believe are coming from this House as well as the administration. There is no question that, this last election, Russia meddled in our election. It is not disputed that that order came from Vladimir Putin. There is no dispute, among our intelligence agencies, that he had a strong preference for Donald Trump, and the most terrifying finding that our intelligence agencies made was that Russia is sharpening their knives and undertaking a lessons-learned campaign because they will go at us and our allies again. Unfortunately, we have seen that those charged with getting to the bottom of what has happened have been compromised.…”